Housecall: Seller financing repaid

Edith Lank will answer personally any questions with a stamped self-addressed envelope sent to 240 Hemingway Drive, Rochester, N.Y. 14620 (please include a stamped return envelope), or readers may e-mail her at ehlank@aol.com. Please visit online at www.askedith.com.

By edith lank

Published: July 20, 2013;Last modified: July 21, 2013 09:21AM

Dear Ms. Lank: I inherited the family home and took back a 30-year mortgage, which expires July 2014. Do I need a lawyer to discharge the mortgage? What steps do I need to take? — J., via askedith.com

Answer: It’s not quite clear what’s going on, but evidently you sold the house and took back a mortgage that has only another year to run. You will then sign a Certificate of Satisfaction (in some states, a Deed of Reconveyance) stating that the debt has been paid off, and see that this important document is filed in the Public Records Office of the county where the property is located. The certificate will then be forwarded to the borrower. Any lawyer can take care of this simple paperwork.

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Medicaid look-back

Dear Ms. Lank: I have been told there is a time period of at least five years or more that a person has to sell their property and not be subject to nursing home costs if the person can’t afford them. What happens if a person sells their property and does away with all the money less than five years before applying to go into a nursing home on Medicaid? Do you see any concrete reason a five-year minimum selling property is imposed in the first place? — J. G., via askedith.com

Answer: That five-year look-back isn’t about property you might sell. It applies to assets you’ve given away. If it weren’t there, a millionaire could give everything he owned to his kids, and then the very next day expect Medicaid (that is, the rest of us) to pay his nursing-home costs because he was penniless.